Ghanaian students excel in Mtandao Afrika Website Designing Contest held in Egypt, Cairo

Participating students and teacher coaches were drawn from Aggrey Memorial Secondary School, Mfantsipim School, Prempeh College, Kumasi Polytechnic and a former student of Accra Academy. Aggrey Memorial School won the Platinum Award (the highest award) in the category of Interdisciplinary with the Mfantsipim school team winning the Silver award in the Sports and Health category. There are five categories for entry which include; Arts and Culture, Science and Mathematics, Social Sciences, Sports and Health and Interdisciplinary.

As part of the award ceremony, participants were trained on various ICT related topics such as Blogging, Wikipedia, Visio studio, SQL and integration of ICT into teaching and learning. There were also leadership training sessions. Participants later visited places of interest in Cairo.

Mtandao Afrika (Ki- shawili word meaning Network Africa) is the African version of Thinkquest web development contest. The program aims to empower African youth to learn new skills afforded by Information and Communication Technology (ICTs) and contribute to the knowledge economy. The students and youth in turn use their skills to design web pages. This web development contest is organised annually by School Net Africa with sponsorship from Microsoft Unlimited Potential program.

In Ghana, the Mtandao Afrika project is being coordinated by Rescue Mission Ghana along side with Global Teenager Project. In 2006, Rescue Mission Ghana collaborated with International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD) to train 229 students and 51 teachers in word processing, Internet navigation and web development skills.

The award winners who made it to Egypt were:

1. Joel Maafo Budu
2. Rudolph Elikem Klu
3. Samuel Opoku
4. Ebenezer Arthur
5. Livingstone Koduah
6. Bernard Tay
7. Hawawu Mustapha
8. Philip Yamoah Appiah
9. Mavis Adwoa Nkansah
10. Nii Okpoti Hebulor Korney
11. Christopher Dzagbletey

The two coaches were:

1. Doreen Ami Agbodja from Mfantsipim
2. Paul Nyagorme from Aggrey Memorial Zion Sec. School.

The award wining projects are:

• http://library2006.mtandao-afrika.net/MAF06000/ (Platinum award)
• http://library2006.mtandao-afrika.net/MAF060129/english/index.htm (Silver award)

The rest of the projects can be found at:

http://www.mtandao-afrika.org/English/winners2006.aspx